Friday, October 3, 2014

BEST WORST MOVIE is simply THE BEST!

BEST WORST MOVIE is the best documentary I have ever seen. It deals with the concept of what gives a film its "cult" status. The documentary explores the weird fascination some people have for the movie TROLL 2. The kid from TROLL 2, Michael Stephenson is all grown up and has become a film maker himself. He takes us on a little journey learning just how much people truly love TROLL 2. The film TROLL 2 has experienced a surge in popularity in the last few years.

God bless George Hardy. What an American treasure and wonderful human-being. He played the father in TROLL 2 and now in real life he is a dentist. He is an extraordinary man living in a normal ordinary world. BEST WORST MOVIE follows him most of the time as he too discovers what a popular guy he is for playing the father in TROLL 2. In the past George wanted to be an actor. Now he is given a chance to experience a taste of what it is like to be famous. He goes through the highs and lows of fame questioning whether or not he made the right decision in his past. Ultimately he does come to realize that he has a great life now and that he did indeed choose the right path. He is such a joy to watch on the screen as he cheerfully accepts his role as being in what a lot a people consider to be the worst movie ever made relishing the attention. Often BEST WORST MOVIE breaks away from it's main story of George Hardy to also interview other actors from TROLL 2 and let us know what they have been doing and where they are now. It is interesting to see the real people who we only thought of as characters in a bad movie. I particularly like how the director, Claudio Fragasso tries to understand his own film's popularity. He was trying to make a scary movie so when audiences are laughing he doesn't understand why. The notion of what is "campy" is lost on him. Maybe it is a cultural thing.

What BEST WORST MOVIE does best is bring to light the limited popularity of a cult film. TROLL 2 has a following that seems rather small. But when you get all the fans together at screenings we see just how big of a phenomenon the film has really become. George Hardy and others involved in TROLL 2 see all these people and get the idea that this film is big everywhere. But as the documentary shows when appearing at other conventions outside of TROLL 2 designated events the numbers of people showing up for Q&A's and autographs are almost nonexistent. Not everyone appreciates TROLL 2's camp value. Different audiences view the film differently (as we see at the Alabama screening for charity) and their reaction reminds us all as to why TROLL 2 is considered the worst movie of all time.

BEST WORST MOVIE is well put together and always entertaining. I am very thankful to the documentary film makers for explaining how TROLL 2 ended up the movie it became and how it affected so many people. I remember seeing TROLL 2 back when I was a kid. I didn't like it especially with such an out of nowhere dark ending. I did not become a fan making troll masks or writing TROLL 2 fan fiction like so many others depicted in the documentary. I dismissed the film as craptacularness and went on with the rest of my life. Still I often thought about the film. I cannot deny that the odd and bizarre shenanigans of the film left an impression on me. After watching so many Italian horror films I would think back to TROLL 2 and wonder if it was actually an Italian production. BEST WORST MOVIE answered that question big time with a resounding 'YES'. Now we know why the dialogue was so terrible and the acting so unnatural. What the naive director thought was American behavior simply was nowhere near the realm of reality.

Overall this documentary is very honest and uplifting piece of work. In the end it gives us film makers hope that no matter how bad a film is they all have an audience out there somewhere. People can love a film for something other than the film's intended purpose. Let us hope they make TROLL 3 just for the heck of it. It wouldn't be the same but I would watch if George Hardy was back.